Hush, Little Baby
by skybound2
Summary: Dean's having a little trouble sleeping. Bunnies are involved. This is light-hearted fare I'm attempting to leave the safety-net of angst .


**Title:** Hush, Little Baby

**Author:** **skybound2**  
**Character(s):** Dean and Sam  
**Rating:** PG  
**Spoiler Warnings:** None. This could fit in anywhere during season 2.  
**Summary:** Dean's having a little trouble sleeping. Bunnies are involved. This is light-hearted fare (I'm attempting to leave the safety-net of angst).  
**Author's Notes:** Written for **starrylizard** over at **spn_thur_nights** back in 2007. Many thanks to **crayzee_gal** for the beta!  
**Prompts (up to 3 objects, words or phrases):** premonition, "Sammy?" and sleep deprivation  
**Disclaimers:** Playing in Kripke's universe, none of this is mine folks :-)  
**Word Count:** ~1500

**Hush, Little Baby**

Dean flops onto his back, heaving a deep sigh as he focuses on the water stained ceiling above his head. Or, at least, he **hopes** it's a water stain. He doesn't even want to contemplate the alternative. Feeling fuzzy in the head, he listens to the ancient air conditioning unit plugging away in the dark of the room, more noisy than effective, he finds himself unable to sleep. Again.

Minutes tick on by, and the water stain on the ceiling is, unfortunately, becoming less interesting with each one that passes. _Oh, this is getting ridiculous._ He rolls over, the thin cotton sheets feeling scratchy on his skin, and takes in his brother's sleeping form across the room. It's too dark to see his features, but Dean can see the even rise and fall of his chest, indicating a nice, deep, pleasant sleep. _Lucky bastard._

It's been three days since Dean has gotten a decent night's sleep, and it's **really** starting to piss him off.

"Sammy? Sam? You awake?" Sam's even breathing is the only response Dean receives. Grunting, Dean reaches for the pen he knows is sitting on the nightstand by his head, knocking his wallet and his Dad's journal off the surface as he does. He pauses for a moment to see if the thump they made hitting the floor has roused his brother, a snuffle from five feet away and the sound of dry, smacking lips is all he hears. Another moment more and he finally has a firm grip on the pen. He takes a second to contemplate his next move, before giving a half-hearted shrug and hurling the pen at his brother, managing to whack him right on the forehead. Dean stifles a laugh, and feigns sleep.

"Whu-? The hell!" Sam sputters as he sits up in his bed rubbing his eye, looking for whatever it was that woke him up out of a sound sleep. His other hand comes in contact with the pen that's responsible, and he glares at the back of his brother's head. "Dean? Dean?" A light, very **fake** snore is his only response. "Dean, I know you're awake."

"'m not."

"You have to be, you're talking to me right now."

"Well, I'm **trying** to sleep. Can't a guy get a little shut-eye?"

"Dean, did you throw a pen at me?"

"No."

"Dean."

"Maybe."

"_Dean._ "

"Yes. Okay? Yes, I threw a pen at you."

"Why?"

"Can't sleep, got bored." Sam can practically hear the shrug in his brother's voice. Sam sighs, he's just too tired to deal with this crap right now.

"Goodnight, Dean."

"Night." Dean listens as his brother settles back down into bed, his breathing easing little by little until Dean is positive he's asleep. Dean turns back to the water stained ceiling hoping that he manages to fall asleep before dawn this time. Or that the stain at least gets more interesting.

Turns out he's not nearly that lucky.

~~~\/~~~

On the fifth day, Dean is starting to become slightly delirious. Sam is going over the game plan for that night – they've been hunting a bunyip on Lake Tahoe (and don't ask how the damned thing ended up in Nevada instead of Australia, their best guess so far is that the thing arrived via FedEx, and **that's** just not something they're willing to deal with at the moment), and they think they've finally got the thing's attack pattern figured out (at least enough to make a go at stopping it), when Dean starts seeing things. He's trying to focus on what his brother is saying, he really is, it's just hard, what with the wallpaper swirling like that.

"Are those bunnies?" As it turns out, his brain to mouth reflex has been hampered by the lack of sleep as well.

Sam looks at Dean like he's just grown a third eye, and really Dean doesn't think that's fair. The pattern on the wall really **does** look disturbingly like bunnies. Cannibalistic bunnies at that. _Does that one have two heads?_ Dean does a full-body lean to the side so he can see around his brother better.

He's just beginning to see a pattern in the revolutions of the cannibalistic bunnies on the wall when his brother snaps his fingers in front of his face. Twice.

"Dean? What the hell are you talking about?"

Dean shakes his head to clear his field of vision before focusing on Sam once again. "Uh, 's nothing. Never mind." Sam's eyebrows are somewhere in the vicinity of the back of his head as he looks at his brother. "Have you been hitting the wormwood again?"

"One time, Sam! One time!"

"It's a valid question."

Dean lets out a long-suffering sigh, "No, of course I haven't." Dean pauses, dragging a weary hand down his face, "I just haven't gotten much sleep lately."

"Still? How long?"

"A few days I guess."

Sam looks at his brother, taking in the heavy, dark circles around his eyes. "Are you going to be able to handle the hunt tonight? Because we can wait an-"

"No. I'll be fine. Nothing wrong with me that a gallon of coffee won't fix."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Sides, we let this thing keep on for another day, someone else'll just wind up dead. Don't want that on our conscience do we?"

~~~\/~~~

As Sam is carting his brother's mostly unconscious form back to the Impala later that night, he finds himself more disturbed then worried. Sure, Dean took a nasty bump on the head (from a giant, freaking amphibious **rabbit** with incisors the size of Sam's skull) but that was really only the cherry on top of the Dean-issue-sundae.

The first scoop of which was the fact that Dean **knew** exactly where to find the thing once they got to the lake, how to take it out (and honestly, who could have seen **that** one coming?), and exactly **when** to push Sam out of the way of the thing's over-sized, and very unlucky, foot just before it made contact with Sam's head.

As Sam's settling Dean into the passenger seat, getting a swat to the face from his brother for routing around in Dean's jacket pocket for the keys, his curiosity gets the better of him. "Dean? How'd you know how to kill that thing? I mean in all the research we did, that wasn't one of the possible ways we came across."

Dean's head lulls to the side before angling upwards, his eyes more then just a tad glassy as he tries to focus on his brother. "Wallpaper told me."

Sam arches an eyebrow, "the wallpaper told you?"

"'s what I said, isn't it?"

"But, Dean -"

"'m tired, Sammy. I need to sleep, k?" His brother's slurred speech is almost enough to convince Sam to let him get some much needed rest. Unfortunately, there's a very good chance that Dean's sustained a concussion, and the fact that he's talking complete nonsense isn't helping his case. "No way. Sorry, man. You've got to stay awake for at least another eight hours."

"The hell! Need sleep. Miss sleep. Sleep is nice."

"Well, it's either that or you go to the hospital. Your choice."

A very mellow "Screw you, Sam" is his only response.

"See, you're perking up already. Now, tell me more about this wallpaper..."

~~~\/~~~

It's day seven, and Dean has just spent the better part of 18 hours sound asleep (which is what he would still be doing if he had his way). As is, Bobby called with another hunt a few states over that really can't wait. "So, what? You think I was having premonitions, Sam? 'Cause, I gotta tell you, I'm thinking that? That's pretty unlikely. That's your gig, man. Not mine." Dean spares his brother a humoring glance from the driver's side.

"What, you got a better explanation? I mean other then 'the wallpaper made me do it'?"

"Well, _no._ But, I'm still nursing a brain injury, can't expect me to be all clever just yet."

"Yeah, uh-huh. Whatever you say, Dean."

Just before midnight they reach their destination and check into a run-down little red-topped motel that claims to have both free HBO and jacuzzi bathtubs. Neither of which is the case, but Dean's willing to forgive them because they have beds. And that's all he really cares about right now. Sam is out for the count by the time his head hits the pillow, and Dean can't help laughing at his little brother. All he's done is sit in a car all day going over books, and still, he's exhausted.

Dean settles into his bed, focusing on the popcorn ceiling overhead, and eagerly awaiting sleep. Two hours later he has determined that: 1. there are approximately 4,578 popcorn kernels in the immediate vicinity above his bed; 2. there is no God; and 3. that there **is** a Devil, and that he hates Dean more then any other human on Earth. With a huff he rolls over. "Sam? Sammy? You awake?"

Dean can't help but smirk at the indignant snort his brother makes when the pen hits him square on the forehead.

~End


End file.
